Pinewood derby

Wyatt had his first Pinewood Derby tonight.  It was my first Pinewood Derby too...  Wyatt's car was/is pretty sweet.  He made it with help from Will, but not much help.  Wyatt designed the car and Wyatt's scout leader and Will cut the wood for the car (totally appropriate help).  Wyatt did the sanding and painting.  Did I mention he and Will did all of this the night before the car was due for design judging?  Nothing makes a car fast like procrastination.  

The Pinewood Derby was fun.  I really didn't know what to expect.  I think my older brothers participated in this Boy Scout tradition but I was probably too young to notice.  We have a big group of scouts here.  Most of the boys have older brothers who were there to cheer.  The atmosphere was a great mix of friendly-competition and accomplishment driven pride.  There were many heats.  They ran the races with the aid of some computer software that figured out the speed of the cars and made race heats with cars that were more compatible with each other.  Each car raced several times and I think each kid ended up winning at least one heat.  Things were a little crazy so it was hard to tell exactly what was going on.

Wyatt's car ended up being one of the faster cars on the track.  I think he ended the night in the top 8 of 20 or so racers.  He also won second in a design category.  We were all pretty proud of him.

And now, a bunch of pictures only I care about seeing...

Colter, being excluded from the sawing and sanding action.

We got to the race super early (we are never early for things...) because Wyatt's car was a little under weight.  Wyatt was kind of nervous.  We didn't have a way to test the car out on any kind of track just our table.

Adell got tired and bored.  To entertain herself she flipped the camera on my phone around and took about  50 pictures of herself making silly faces.  I kept this one.  

Wyatt's super-proud-face after winning his first few heats.

Can you see his face?  He is pumped!  I think his car won this heat too--I cannot remember.  

Colter knows how to clap.  He took his job of cheering the racers on very seriously.

A happy kid...with graphite stained fingers.

Where'd my baby go?

Colter just a couple of days old.  Maybe not the best picture of Colter?  It is getting late...I am tired and cannot see the thumbnails of my photos very well.  I think he is adorable.  

Oy!  The baby is 10 months old!  I am going to try and write this post without a lot of moaning and crying.  I really think it is a good thing that babies grow up.  There are so many cool and cute things they can do as they get older.  But newborn baby is my favorite age and stage.  It will always be so...I do not have a newborn baby any more...and that makes me a little bit sad.  (Not sad enough to have another one though!)


Colter is all kinds of mobile.  He can crawl like a champ and pulls himself up to standing on everything.  He loves to push laundry baskets, kitchen chairs, doll strollers, the recycling bin, pretty much anything that will support his weight while walking.  He is not a big fan of holding my fingers and walking.  I am endlessly thankful for that!  Having a child who can walk but refuses to do so without holding your fingers is my least favorite baby stage.  It is a back breaker!

We have tiled floors in most of the living areas in our house.  These tiles are freezing cold--year round.  Colter has learned how to do a perfect bear-crawl if he doesn't have any pants on and wants to cross the tiled floor.  I'd put a picture up but he really only bear-crawls when has no clothes on and I am trying not to put neked pictures up here.

With his crawling he can get into every thing!  He finds the most wonderful--er--gross things on the floor and puts them right into his mouth: dirt, hairballs, toys, dropped food...yuck.  He has also discovered the toilet as a plaything.  Just last week I was helping Adell finish up her potty routine all of a sudden I looked down and Colter was just about to dive into the toilet bowl.  He is some kind of toilet ninja!  He wasn't even in the bathroom with us, he just appeared out of nowhere?!

He loves to be outside (eating whatever he can find).  He loves family hikes and walks in the stroller.  I wish we got out more for his sake.



He knows how to blow bubbles with his drool, give zerberts, and make loads of spitty mouth noises.  He is also a fantastic mimic.  He likes to "sing" when he hears music, "yell" when he hears cheering and "laugh" when he hears a joke.  He recently learned how to "dance" by watching all the girls dance around the family room one day.  He stomps his feet and wiggles his bum with the biggest grin on his face.


He is a great sleeper!  Inconsistent night time sleep is one of the few things I do not like about newborn babies.  Colter is probably the best sleeper we've ever had.  He goes right down for his naps and sleeps through the night.  The above picture was taken at church in a rare moment.  He never falls asleep outside of his crib, even in his car seat he will fight sleep until we get him in bed.

He has figured out the "Daddy's home" routine at our house.  I should really do a separate post about this family tradition.  Will has done it with the kids forever.  As soon as he walks in the door he hollers out "Estoy-ah-kee!" (I am spelling phonetically there, it is a spanish phrase and I have no idea how to spell it.) meaning: I am here.  From all corners of the house our kids come running for "jump-hugs".  They line up and race across the entry way, flinging themselves into Daddy's arms.  Colter gets all excited as soon as he hears Daddy call out.  Colter crawls into the entry way and watches the other kids.  Once it is his turn, I help him walk over to Daddy and jump into his arms.  Colter loves it.

He just learned how to sign "finished" when he is all done eating.  I've been working on this with him for a couple of weeks.  He just got it a couple of days ago.  (My kid is a genius...)

Happy 10 months Colter William.  You are so much fun!

**post edit** Colter also has four teeth poking through his gums!  The first two (on the bottom) showed up just before he turned 10 months old.  The second two (on top) showed up less than a week later.  It is sweet to see those little baby teeth smiling out when he gives us a grin.

5K

I don't run, even for my life.  I have friends and family members who are big time runners--not me.  My lack of running skills aside, our family attended a 5K fundraiser last weekend.  Will and Wyatt ran the full 5K.  Lorien and Clare ran a smaller fun-run.  I walked most of the 5K with two ladies who out walked me by a long shot.  It was a chilly but sunny day and we all had a nice time cheering each other on.  Will got second place in the "running while pushing a stroller" division (he pushed Adell and Colter in our double stroller).  Wyatt got sixth place for kids his age (under 12).  Clare stood at the finish line waiting for each of us to cross.  Cheering her guts out.  I didn't finish the race, I was too pooped (and more than a little embarrassed to be the very. last. "runner" in the race).  So I cut across the park and didn't go through the finish line.  I felt bad for leaving Clare in the lurch.  She would have waited for me until the sun came down.  

Clare is in the red and pink stripes running with her friend, Clara, in the red.

Dave ran the fun-run pushing an umbrella stroller and then ran the 5K--pushing the stroller!  Way to show us all up Dave.

Go Clare, go!  

What dreams are made of

We got a package in the mail today.  It was heavy.  When I opened it up I cried with joy.  Two big tubs of  Marshmallow fluff!!!  I couldn't believe my luck.  My sister sent two tubs all the way across the country. This stuff is awesome, magical and delicious.  We had peanut butter and fluff sandwiches for dinner, epic.  For some reason fluff is not available in stores here in California (it is fat and cholesterol free--for crying out loud!).  A facebook friend told me she can get it in Japan, where is the justice in that?  Oh well, for now, we are well stocked and loving lunch time.

Thanks Jennifer!

Sugar and spice...

We got to have Sadie over to play this week.  The girls were adorable, dress-ups were a must as was a proper tea party.  The last time I set up a tea party for Adell, Colter was 4 weeks old and I had to let him scream his guts out while I helped Adell and Clare have tea.  Calmness and patients was the rule at this tea party (almost).  Both of the girls wanted pink-every thing (cups, spoons, bowls etc.) so a few arguments were had.  Both of the girls wanted to know if the party was ready yet...every seven seconds.  I had to wash all of the tea party dishes because they were nasty.  I think both girls would have enjoyed tea (hot coco) in dusty/slimy dishes but my conscience wouldn't allow it.



They really are very sweet friends...as long as we have two pink every things around.

Brains...BRAINS!

Did you drag your significant other out to hunt zombies for Valentine's Day?

No?

Well I did.

Will and I don't celebrate Valentine's Day in an over-the-top way.  I remember our second or third Valentine's as a married couple.  We waited for hours for a table at a restaurant and once we finally got a table the place was so crowded and noisy we couldn't hear each other shout.  After the meal was over I told Will Valentine's Day was not a big deal to me and it would be OK if we didn't put pressure on each other just because Hallmark told us to.

We usually go on a date some time around Valentine's Day and Will brings me home flowers but that is pretty much it.  Valentine's day is more for our kids than us...and we are OK with that.

Really.

However, I think I tested the limits of our non-romantic Valentine's celebration this year.  I got an email about three weeks earlier inviting me and a resourceful companion to battle it out with zombies during a test apocalypse.  It seemed like the perfect Valentine's date to me!

Saturday night we dropped the kids off with a sitter and met up with lots of other like-minded combatants.  My friend, Lenore, planned out the whole ordeal...I don't know where she came up with the idea...but it was brilliant.

We were split up into teams of four and given our list of tasks to prepare for the end of the world.  We had to race around town finding locations and situations, snapping pictures, avoiding the un-dead and texting the pictures to Lenore for points.

Situations included things like: deciding who had the best food storage and eating something from said store of food.




Carrying our wounded into the Emergency Room


Meeting at our local chapel as a safe zone.  (We did not break into the church, we had keys.)


And of course, hanging out with Mitt Romney.


At some of the locations we would be ambushed by actual brain eating zombies.  We did not get any points if zombies were in any of our pictures.  We had to be super sneaky getting the picture with Mitt.  Zombies are pretty smart...must be all the brains they eat?

Lenore (our host for the evening) is the zombie on the far right.  Lenore's daughter is also a zombie...

It was so much fun.  I think we should make it a Valentine's Day tradition.

Hike

  
Somehow Will and I have managed to raise a troop of children who like to go hiking. (So far...we still have a lot of child rearing to do...)  Since we moved over to the other side of the bay there have been lots more opportunities to get out and explore the area.  The pictures in this post were taken about a month ago when we went out on one of our favorite hikes.  The day was lovely and the big kids had the best time blazing trails ahead of us. 
  

Wyatt cannot get enough hiking.  He always moans when we say it is time to turn back, promising he is not tired in the least.  Even Colter has a good time riding up in the baby-backpack.  The middle girls (Clare and Adell) spend a lot of time complementing each other on their hiking skills.  Lorien invents games and songs as she leads the way.  

The scenery is certainly different from any of the hikes I did growing up in Maine and pretty different from Will's hikes in Montana too.  It is a little strange to think that when and if we go hiking in Maine with the kids the scenery will seem strange to them.  California is our home after all, it will always be their normal in comparison to everything else.  I must admit it is a pretty great 'normal'.